20 hours
First fic for One Chicago Appreciation Week 2022 and Burzek Appreciation Week 2022! AO3 link
Prompts - Chills and ‘Why won’t you let me in? What are you afraid of?’
Summary - Those 20 hours in solitary had affected Adam more than he cared to let on and he was hiding it from everyone. But he works in an elite unit so people are bound to notice.
Notes - I played around with the timelines a bit but it’s set after the Season 2 episode ‘Prison Ball’ but includes elements of Season 5 as Hailey is present
Adam woke with a start. Breathing heavily, he ran his hands over his face in an attempt to wipe the sweat away, cool the chills and calm himself down. It had been 5 days since those 20 hours and he hadn’t slept through the night once. He looked to his right and breathed a sigh of relief to see Kim still sleeping soundly, curled on her side. At least he hadn’t woken her up he thought as he looked over at the clock. 3:38am. The earliest he could get into the bullpen without arising suspicion was 6, any earlier and people would start asking questions and this was not something he wanted to talk about.
Getting out of bed quietly so as not to wake his sleeping girlfriend, he walked into the kitchen. Coffee, that would ensure he stayed awake for the rest of the day and no one would know any different. Whilst waiting for the coffee machine to finish, he looked around. His once manly bachelor pad now bore signs of someone in a happy relationship. There were pictures on the fridge, cushions on the sofa, that Adam had no idea how they got there, and two glasses with the dregs of last night’s wine on the coffee table. Adam smiled to himself, even with everything going on in his head right now he still had her. She was the love of his life, for that he was sure and he knew he had to get over this, for her sake if not for his own.
-------
Dragging himself into the precinct at 6am was not what he had planned today yet here he was. He went straight into the break room to make another cup of coffee, it was going to be a long day. His phone chimed shortly after he returned to his desk – it was a picture of the note he had left Kim on her mug and a message saying I love you too. A small grin crept across his face.
‘What’s got you smiling like a fool’ came Kevin’s voice. Adam had been so preoccupied that he hadn’t even noticed him coming up the stairs.
‘Nothing’ Adam said.
‘Yeah nothing to rhyme with Burgess’ Kevin smirked.
If there was one person who understood the relationship he had with Kim, it was Kevin. The two hadn’t necessarily gotten off to the best start in relation to her but now Adam understood that he was only looking out for her, and he appreciated someone else having her back.
-------
By the time lunch came around, Adam was on his fourth cup of coffee and people were starting to notice his irritable behaviour. He had snapped at Jay when Jay asked what was wrong. Had barked orders at Hailey even though she outranked him. Al had called him out for zoning out during their meeting and Voight, well Voight could tell something was up.
‘Ruzek’, the gruff voice of their Sergeant said, ‘my office, now’. Adam groaned internally, getting called to the Boss’s office was never good news and he knew after the way he was behaving today, it definitely wasn’t.
‘Sarge’ he said when he entered the room and closed the door behind him.
‘You going to tell me what’s going on or do I have to drag Burgess up here and hear it from her’. Oh, great Adam thought, he thinks it’s my relationship that’s getting in the way of the job, whereas the relationship was the only thing keeping him afloat right now.
‘It’s nothing Sarge, and it’s got nothing to do with Kim, she’s great, I mean we’re fine. I just…’, he took a breath, ‘haven’t been sleeping great, think I just need a new pillow is all’ he said with a chuckle. Voight didn’t look convinced.
‘If that’s all, close the door on your way out’.
‘That’s all Sarge, I’m good’. And with that, he left Voight’s office and headed straight to the locker room. He sat down on the bench and put his head in his hands, I’ve got to get over this he thought. If not I’m out of intelligence and that can’t happen. Just as he was trying to pull himself together, he heard a voice.
‘Adam, hey, what’s up?’ He looked up to see Kim walk in, she looked concerned. ‘You didn’t text back this morning, I just wanted to check you’re alright. You’ve been gone every morning this week before I wake up’.
Adam rubbed his face, ‘I’m all good darlin’’ he said with his signature grin, ‘just had paperwork to catch up on’. And with that, he got up, quickly pecked her on the cheek and headed back to the bullpen, leaving a very confused and worried Kim in his wake.
-------
Adam was the last to leave the bullpen that evening and once he thought he was alone he headed back into the locker room. He knew Kim had gone home earlier; she had text him to say she was going to cook if he was home before 7. It was now 9 and he had shot her a message back to say the team had to stay late. In reality, Voight had a meeting in the Ivory tower at 5 and the rest of the team apart from him and Jay had left before 6. Jay had headed out a little while ago and he had just been staring at the screen until he thought he was alone. He knew Kim would probably be in bed by the time he got home which meant he could hopefully avoid the conversation he knew was coming.
When he got to the locker room however he saw that he wasn’t alone. Jay was sat on the bench waiting for him.
‘Ruze, talk to me man’.
‘It’s nothing Jay really, I’ve just not been sleeping, need a new pillow, you know the story’. He tried to play it off but he could see Jay wasn’t believing him.
‘That’s not it though is it’, Jay said in a slow calm voice. ‘You’ve been like this ever since that UC case. The one in the prison’.
Adam bristled, he wanted to say something, anything to deflect what Jay was saying but he couldn’t get the words out.
‘Going into the hole must have been hell man, I’ve heard the stories. It’s normal that it would have affected you. Hell, you’d be crazy if you didn’t get torn up over what you saw.’
Adam sat down facing his locker, not wanting to see Jay’s face.
‘I’ve seen the look in your eyes before’, Jay took a deep breath, ‘I’ve had that look in my eyes too. When every time you close them your back somewhere that broke you. It’s normal but you’ve got to get some help man. Have you told anyone the real reason you’re not sleeping?’ Adam shook his head. ‘Not even Burgess?’.
Adam scoffed. ‘What do I tell her? Hey Kim, you know your big strong cop boyfriend who’s not afraid of bullets. Well he got locked in a room for 20 hours and went almost crazy and now he can’t sleep because he keeps having nightmares.’
Jay looked at him slowly, ‘yes’ he said simply. ‘Tell her and she’ll be there for you. Hell that girl is crazy about you and heaven knows why’. He chuckled quietly. ‘You’ve got PTSD Adam, at least on some level’ he said as Adam looked at him and tried to interrupt. ‘20 hours locked in a room with no windows, hearing sounds of other prisoners going crazy, not knowing when you were going to get out. That’s a lot for anyone to take. Even a big strong cop’. He said with a smile. ‘I’ve known men bigger and stronger than you, crack under a lot less’.
‘But that’s different’ Adam said.
‘Why, because it was war. Men are men Adam, in prison, on the streets or on the battlefield. It doesn’t mean what we see or hear doesn’t affect us. You should talk to someone. When I had all that stuff with Morgan, therapy got me through it. Well therapy and Upton.’
Adam looked up at him with a curious expression.
‘Yeah, she basically told me if I didn’t go to therapy and start dealing with it, she was going to ask for another partner’.
‘Damn, for someone so small, she’s feisty’. Smirked Adam, Jay nodded and laughed.
‘She is, but it took that for me to realise that me not dealing with it wasn’t just effecting me. It was having an impact on those around me, those I care about.’
‘But therapy’ Adam said, ‘talking to someone about my feelings and crap, not sure that’s for me.’
‘I didn’t think it was for me either, thought I’d be weak if I went to see someone but it helped. It really did. But start with talking to Kim, she knows somethings up. We all do. And she might surprise you.’
With that Jay patted him on the shoulder and headed out leaving Adam with a lot to think about.
-------
Adam took a breath before opening the door to his apartment. She loved him, he thought to himself, she loved him.
As he walked in, Kim turned her head to see him from where she was sat on the couch. ‘You’re home late’, she said. It wasn’t said in an accusatory tone, it was laced with something else, worry, perhaps.
Adam took of his jacket and draped it over a chair before making his way to sit next to her.
‘Talk to me Adam’, Kim said softly as she took his hands in hers. ‘Why can’t you let me in? What are you so afraid of?’.
This was it thought Adam, this is the moment I might lose her. And with that he started talking. Once he had opened the flood gates, it didn’t seem like he’d ever stop.
He told her how he hadn’t been sleeping because every night it felt like he was lying on that hard slab and all he could hear was the shouts coming from the neighbouring cells. He told her how he felt like he’d been in that room for days and when it turned out it was only 20 hours he was ashamed of how he felt. He told her when Kevin seemed fine straight afterwards that he must be weak for acting the way he was. He told her that he didn’t want her to think less of him because he was having nightmares so he made sure she fell asleep before he even dared to close his eyes. He told her how Jay had cornered him this evening and told him to talk to her and that maybe he should get some therapy. He told her how he had scoffed at the idea because good cops don’t need therapy. He told her how the reason he hadn’t told her any of this was because he was scared. He was scared she would look at him with pity, scared that she would think he was weak, scared that she’d leave him.
All through this, Kim watched him whilst he talked, holding his hands but never interrupting. She knew he had to get it all out and when it seemed like he had finished, she gently squeezed his hand and he looked at her.
But it wasn’t a look of pity that Adam saw, it was a look of love, a look of pride.
‘It took a lot to tell me all that Adam’, Kim smiled, ‘I always thought you were the strongest man I’d ever met’. Adam heard the past tense and looked away. Kim squeezed his hand again and he looked back. ‘But now I realise that you’re stronger than I ever thought and I love you more because of it.’
Adam had tears in his eyes and let out a weak laugh.
‘And we will get through this together, and if you want to go to talk to someone then…’. Adam interrupted her, ‘I do’ he said. ‘I think it’ll help’. She smiled, ‘then I will drive you to the appointments and wait until you’re finished. Then we can come home together, and talk about it, or not if that’s what you want, but we will do it together.’
Adam’s smile became even larger as he wrapped her into a hug and gently squeezed. How did I get to be so lucky he thought as he held the woman of his dreams and realised that tonight, he might actually get to sleep through the night, for the first time since that hideous day.